I been watching a DVD video of Weather Report's interesting Live at Montreux 1976 Jazz Festival performance (featuring the Heavy Weather lineup of keyboardist Joe Zawinul, bassist Joe Pastorius, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, drummer Alex Acuna, and percussionist Manolo Badrena). The focus of the show is primarily on material from Black Market (1976).

At its inception, Weather Report was an avant-garde experimental jazz group, following in the steps of Miles Davis' In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. The band moved away from the free-jazz elements of its early albums towards a more fully developed compositional technique.

The video is of 'Birdland' from the 1977 album Heavy Weather; an album that pushed the group into superstardom. It is from the Live Concert, Offenbach, Germany, Sept. 29, 1978; a period of the bands commercial peak

The band's history is divided into three distinct eras—the early, freer material, the middle groove period with bassists Alphonso Johnson and, later, Jaco Pastorius and their final period where co-leader/keyboardist Joe Zawinul's increasing interest in world music became more dominant. In 1978 Weather Report was the rock and roll band of jazz. They lasted until 1986.